Description
The Smith family firm of London globe makers was founded in 1799 by Charles Smith, who was “engraver to the Prince of Wales.” Smith began as a map publisher and seller, and may have added globes to their production to compete with the Cary firm. Charles began by producing miniature and pocket globes. After his son joined him in 1845, the company added a variety of floor and table models of globes, which they produced through most of the 19th century, competing with the Malby firm, also in London. According to the cartouche of many Smith globes, they were made by J. Smith, and sold by C. Smith, 172 Strand, where the firm was located from 1827 to 1852. Smith & Son is known to have provided the gores from their “New English Globe” for 12-inch globes to Josiah Loring and successor Gilman Joslin, American globe makers in Boston, from about the 1830s to the 1850s. In 1870, Smith & Son, as it was then known, moved to 63 Charing Cross. Eventually the prominent globe makers George Philip & Son took over the firm and continued issuing Smith globes in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.
References:
Dekker, Elly, et al. Globes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Globes and Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. London: Oxford University Press and the National Maritime Museum, 1999. p. 496.
Lamb, Tom and Collins, Jeremy. The World in Your Hands: An Exhibition of Globes and Planetaria. London: Christie’s, 1994. p. 97.
